2. Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential
customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to
reach their destination - your website - you need to
3. provide them with specific and effective signs that will
direct them right to your site. You do this by creating
carefully chosen keywords.
4. Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the
Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and
presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front
door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used,
the possibility of visitors actually making it all the
way to your site - or of seeing any real profits from the
visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.
5. Your keywords serve as the foundation of your
marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great
precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing
campaign may be, the right people may never get the
chance to find out about it.
6. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather
and evaluate keywords and phrases.
7. You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right
words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you
haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably
WRONG. It's hard to be objective when you are right in
the center
8. of your business network, which is the reason that you
may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords
from the inside. You need to be able to think like your
customers. And since you are a business owner and not
the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the
source.
9. Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of
potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for
words from as many potential customers as you can. You
will most likely find out that your understanding of your
business and your customers' understanding is
significantly different.
10. The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the
words you accumulate from them are words and phrases
you probably never would have considered from deep
inside the trenches of your business.
11. Only after you have gathered as many words and
phrases from outside resources should you add your
own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand,
you are ready for the next step: evaluation.
12. The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a
small number of words and phrases that will direct the
highest number of quality visitors to your website. By
"quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most
likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around
your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating
the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three
elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.
13. Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an
objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the
more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a
search engine which will then bring up your URL.
14. You can now purchase software that will rate the
popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a
number rating based on real search engine activity.
Software such as WordTracker will even suggest
variations of your words and
15. phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to
a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically
expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with
this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the
greater the search engine position you will need to
obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search
results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to
find you.
16. Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good
choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is
specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the
greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to
purchase your goods or services will find you.
17. Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you
have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword
"automobile companies." However, you company
specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile
body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale
than "automobile companies," but it would nevertheless
serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of
people interested in everything from buying a car to
changing their oil filters, you will get only those
consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders
being directed to your site. In other words, consumers
ready to buy your services are the ones who will
immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the
19. The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this
requires putting yourself inside the mind of the
customer rather than the seller to figure out what
motivation prompts a person looking for a service or
product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let's look
at another example, such as a consumer who is
searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you
have to choose between "Seattle job listings" and
"Seattle IT recruiters" which do
20. you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were
looking for this type of specific job, which keyword
would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the
second keyword targets people who have decided on
their career,
21. have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist
you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of
school who is casually trying to figure out what to do
with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to
find people who are ready to act or make a purchase,
and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until
your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases
to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.
22. Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not
done. You must continually evaluate performance across
a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times
and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot
rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not
tell you how many of your visitors actually made a
purchase.
23. Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you
judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual
search engines. There is now software available that
analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer
traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are
bringing you the most valuable customers.
24. This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make
a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find
keywords that direct consumers to your site who
actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or
download your product. This is the most important
factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase,
and should be the sword you wield when discarding and
replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with
keywords that bring in better
26. Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for
search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work
- and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put
into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately
generate your business' rewards.